*NOTICE: I am a proponent of free speech, and the ability to express yourself openly.
I also believe in the power one has to avoid circumstances in which they are uncomfortable.
Negotiation and consent are also very important to me.
If you are triggered easily or do not like subjects involving religion, politics, or sex, I urge you to please click away and have a pleasant day.*

Friday, December 17, 2010

Becoming Beautiful

Per my last post, I believe Beauty is through Understanding. I've been hyper focused lately on developing into a person I can be proud of - a person that I respect. I had an epiphanatic moment today and realized I should be able to clearly define those aspects that I'm striving to incorporate into my life. So, while gathering information on the subject - attributes of people with character, what constitutes 'having integrity', etc... I ran across something that posed some good thoughts and questions.

What am I trying to accomplish? Why do I want to accomplish it? Where to I want to go with my growth? How will I go about the process? Who is motivating me and who is supporting me during this?

Which, while basic in nature, made me stop and think. What am I trying to accomplish? I say I want to become a better person, a person with good character, a person with integrity, but what does that mean? Those words are ambiguous at best, and translatable, and mutable to many different meanings. As a friend of mine once told me - This is why we have dictionaries - to use words appropriately. If you can't find a word that means what you mean, keep looking until you find one that does.

I want to have a strong ethical character - clearly defining my guiding principles and values. I also want to have positive traits and develop new skills to use throughout my lifetime. So following up on that, what does ethics, values, traits and skills mean? (I'm stealing definitions here, 'cause I found them and I like them.)

Ethics are basically the body principles used to decide what's right, good, and proper. It governs your Morality and provides a means to evaluating and deciding among competing options.

Values are attitudes about the worth of people, concepts, or things. Values are important as they influence a person's behavior to weigh the importance of alternatives.

Skills are the knowledge and abilities that a person gains throughout life. The ability to learn a new skill varies with each individual. Some skills come almost naturally, while others come only by complete devotion to study and practice.

Traits are distinguishing qualities or characteristics of a person, while character is the sum total of these traits. There are hundreds of personality traits, but I'm going to focus on those that I think are most important for me to have, and those that are important for me to work on.

At this point, I pause. One, because it's getting late and my weekend is *BEYOND* packed full of things to do, and another because tackling the idea of identifying, defining, refining, and integration of complex ideas like ethics, and values - seeking out specific skill sets and personal traits to analyze is a bit much for my brain right now.